How to get rid of the vicious circle with a portfolio and work experience?

Question

Freelance

We all know this famous, vicious circle: To get a job, you need to show a portfolio, and in order to have something to show in your portfolio, you need to get some orders, that is, a job.
In this case, we are talking about sites. I want to collect a portfolio of a web designer and web developer. I don’t want to steal other people’s sites in my portfolio, because I think it’s rotten. There is only one option left - to invent companies, enterprises and make websites for them, or are there other solutions? Please share your tips.

Answer 1

1 Do "for yourself", i.e. make up something and post it on github pages
2 Find orders through acquaintances, so often they give work despite the portfolio
3 Work for food

Answer 2

Hello. I can help break the chain, arrange a web portfolio for a designer and developer https://webmentor.pro/portfolio
As ideas for a web designer:
Look not at themeforest, where there are already whole topics - it’s difficult for a beginner to come up with the concept of an entire site, but on https://dribbble.com/ - where designers publish very small works, for example, only a feedback form or one page of a chat application.
The first option is a review of other people's work .
As a designer, I suggest you check out the "Debuts" section https://dribbble.com/shots?list=debuts,evaluate any work on quality, find flaws. Think of it like you're hiring another designer. Stood on the other side so to speak.
After your own review, find an opportunity to improve someone else's work, correct it yourself, that is, redraw it taking into account your own comments.
After that, in the portfolio, you can insert someone else's work as a sample, your comments on it and a revised personal version. Marked "review", "remake", "based on". This is not theft, but absolutely independent work.
The second option that occurs in practice is to draw new pages while maintaining the general style and idea .
Here they gave you PSD layouts of several pages or a UI Kit with a complete set of all interface elements. Draw a page that doesn't exist. For example, you only have the PSD of the main page and feedback forms in your hands. What would a page with a list of customers, a page of tariffs, a page of a personal account of a user, a page of an online store showcase look like in the same style? This is the work of a designer. They don't always draw designs from scratch. It happens that a second or third designer is connected to the project and they are obliged to continue working in the same style.
This is not theft, but also absolutely independent work.
The third option is imitation of work with customers and the contractor .
After all, you often go to the sites, we all often go somewhere here. Set yourself a timer for some point in time and when it works - STOP! - the page you are currently on - it needs an urgent redesign.
1) imagine that you are the customer yourself:
look at what is already on the page;
define the problem that this page solves;
define the problem that this site solves;
describe the redesign task for the designer
2) imagine that you are a designer yourself:
make a prototype;
draft design;
and finally complete the task
. And this is not stealing, but independent work.
As ideas for a web developer:
Program what you see on the layout. You can use the samehttps://dribbble.com/ - there are a lot of whole site layouts and individual interface elements.
I consider it a waste to buy only PSD. I recommend taking immediately the finished result of the layout (that is, the HTML of the site template), to which the PSD is attached, in order to make the layout yourself and then compare your version and the version of a more experienced layout designer. Learn from the elders, you might say. I consider layouts that have revisions to be especially valuable, that is, they were redone several times, correcting the comments.
Search google for "free PSD HTML5"
Examples:
bootflat.github.io
https://thesiteslinger.com/blog/free-html-templates
graphicdesignjunction.com/2015/10/html5-website-te...
There is an option to write to the designers who posted only PSD layouts on themeforest. They can be made up and sold independently or together with the author of the theme according to your agreement.
Of course, the web developer needs to program each HTML layout as a result. To make a site based on it with the necessary functionality, solving some problem. And what exactly - come up with it yourself.
Idea generators:
tevko.github.io/practice/index.html
https://copist.ru/ru/blog/2016/02/11/pet-project-ideas/

Answer 3

Another problem out of the blue.
Make some demo sites. Portfolio is ready.

Answer 4

make a portfolio for yourself and don't warm your head

Answer 5

There is a volunteer project for you - write!

Answer 6

I participated in freelancing competitions and even won prizes there. Real projects, real technical specifications, + you can see how other designers work. I collected a portfolio, then got a job in a digital agency without any problems.

Answer 7

I remembered ... in the 200s there was a site pochkapochka.ru in the internets, now it has already disappeared, but there are still screenshots on the network. well, like "sell a kidney, beat the crisis", designed as a business card of some organization, with appeals, advertising texts, motivating pictures, and all that.
so... the joke, of course, is black, but the idea, I hope, is clear? non-existent services, the sale of antimatter "100% legal", chip tuning of the frontal lobe of the brain, a specialized veterinary clinic for the treatment of augmented Martian reptilians, and other crap ...
a good designer will be able to arrange 5 of the same crazy 3-page pages so that each has its own style and charm . bad - rivets 5 identical twins. right in the portfolio, you can say so, they say, look how I from G **** can sculpt different sweets.
and if the joke still comes in, it can also drip a little on the Edwards ...

Answer 8

And what prevents you from creating a small website and registering on fl.ru, taking several orders for thanks and posting a portfolio?